The First Descendant Review

Over the years, we’ve had great and somehow long-lasting releases like Warframe and Destiny. Both have their special place in the communities, and they both know what they want to do. However, what if there is a weird combination between the two with a little extra sprinkled in? Well, meet Nexon Games, a South Korean studio with a literal mountain of ambition. They’re far from new to the scene, considering they’ve been around since 2013.

Nexon Games’ main aim seems to be to develop games that will stand the test of time, like Vindictus or MapleStory, but their latest release might also be their biggest venture yet. Meet The First Descendant, this absolute unit of a release has been put through the paces in beta testing, server upkeep, further development, and even more testing until it is eventually released on 30 June.

Now, we’ve already had the epic privilege of bringing you a preview while the beta was still running…. But you can’t expect us to not give you all the juicy post-release details. So, without further rambling, let’s get to it. Just a little forewarning: A lot has changed since the initial beta. Some of the changes are good, and some are not so good.

Your initial introduction to the world of The First Descendant might not have changed much, but we’ll do a quick recap for those who don’t know. Humans are at war with the Vulgus, an invading race from a different world, but to add fuel to the fire, the Colossi joined in, and that pushed humanity to the point of almost losing the war.

Everything changed when the Descendants came into play; gifted with power from the forgotten ancestors, the humans finally stood a chance at survival. However, while the Colossi had their own seemingly mindless agenda, the Vulgus were being led by Karel, a supposed human who turned against everybody with no regard for the fate of either world. It’ll be up to you and many others to put an end to Karel, the Vulgus, and the Colossi to save humanity and possibly many other worlds.

Yes, yes, the story itself is no stranger to throwing you in the deep end, but things are a lot more forgiving until you find your feet. So, your adventure begins with a quick briefing from Alpha in Albion (Sorry, Fable fans, this is not the Albion you’re thinking of). Your first mission is to secure an Ironheart. This is also where you’ll get to choose your starting Descendant.

However, you’ll need to keep in mind that you’ll have a choice between three Descendants, and you’ll likely be stuck with that one until you can unlock others. Moving on, your starting options will be between Viessa (The Ice Queen), Lepic (The Lovable Idiot), and Ajax (Not just a Tank, he’s THE Tank).

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that each Descendant has their own unique set of skills and quirks that don’t just come into play with combat but also in conversation, giving each of them some interesting interactions with NPCs and giving them a lot of life that is rarely seen in other games.

This alone showed a lot of promise if you can overlook the gratuitous fan service, though there’s a niche for everything, and nobody’s here to judge. Now, with your starter Descendant picked, you’re officially ready to face off against the Vulgus, and you’ll also see just how many similarities between Destiny and Warframe there are in The First Descendant.

Just like that, with the very first cutscene, it’s already clear that this isn’t your average MMORPG that was cobbled together in a week. Real thought and effort were put into everything while maintaining that all-too-familiar Destiny flare. However, the fun starts taking off with just the movement controls and the possibilities that open up with them.

Now, you’d expect the usual movesets for a third-person open-world game, but having a double jump and a grapple is where things become interesting, to say the least. Let’s just say that if it’s even remotely within range, you can probably climb it, jump onto it, or even grapple your way to it. The sky is the limit to how far you can go unless you find a mountain you can climb, and then it becomes more of a case of crossing the world boundaries, which is the limit.

Now, running and jumping aside, there’s a lot more to The First Descendant, and it comes in the form of weapons. Copious amounts of weapons. You will literally fill up your inventory of a hoarder’s dream in weapons with how frequently they drop from just about anything you kill.

Sure, there’s a great variety to choose from, and you’ll have options ranging from simple pistols to all-out launchers, each new gun coming with different stats and such… However, while it is nice to have options and a never-ending supply of upgrades, there has to be a limit at some point because most of what you pick up will probably be sold or salvaged.

Let’s add some fuel to this proverbial fire of confusion – You’ll get veritable mountains of weapons in drops, but nodules come in at quite literally the slowest trickle ever. To give a little background, Modules (or Mods) are essentially extra buffs or alterations you can add to your Descendant and gear.

The reason why this makes no sense is that you’d think that Mods would be your more common drop for the sake of balancing the gameplay a bit more instead of giving you an outright jump in power for each level up since the drops will match your current level, too. However, enemies go through the same power jump, too, which might indicate some deeper issues during development. To each their own, as this might be a controversial topic to even touch on, we’ll leave it at that.

Onto the next part, what makes each Descendant unique from the others? You’ll need more than a good gun if you want any hope of taking down the Vulgus, and each Descendant comes with their own set of abilities. Fair warning: This is where The First Descendant takes on a more technical side, as you’ll need to pay attention to how each character fits into your play style.

So, as can be expected, Viessa is the Ice Queen, and her main skill focus revolves around the ice and cold-based abilities - This also translates to her being great for crowd control and area damage while keeping a healthy distance but can take a punch.

Meanwhile, if you take a closer look at Bunny as an example, her abilities are built around speed and electricity, making her great for quick damage strikes, but she’s painfully vulnerable to attacks as a trade-off. You’ll need to weigh out your options and see what works best for you out of many options.

Unfortunately, you can’t just grab a new Descendant to fight with like you’d pick; there are a few extra steps and requirements. Yes, we know, this is where it goes downhill. Unlocking new Descendants will require you to hunt down their specific parts and pieces, though none of them are easy to come by.

However, the alternative to good old-fashioned farming is by trailing down the dangerous route of Microtransactions… Your credit card might be in danger because a free-to-play game can very easily become pay-to-win. After all, it’s not just for cosmetics. You can also use real-world money to buy your way to the top with none of the work.

If you can look past the horrendous downside of microtransactions and how much they can suck the fun out of any good game, there are a few redeeming qualities to The First Descendant. The biggest quality is how missions and the online aspect come together; The First Descendant uses a mix of partial open-world design and instanced matchmaking together.

This means that you’ll usually load into a huge area with several missions but also with a fairly huge rank of other players, so you’ll never be alone wherever you are and there’s. However, on the off chance that you do end up alone in an instance, it does seem there is some difficulty scaling to match the current player count, too.

All that’s left now is to go out and become the best Descendant you can be and spice things up from a Warframe point of view; everything can be upgraded. Literally… Mods, weapons, and even your Descendants can level up. Leaving you with endless potential for builds and experimentation when you eventually hit the end-game. Granted, it’s not all endless grinding; sometimes, you just have to go with the flow and enjoy the story as it comes. You’d be pleasantly surprised at what you can discover behind each Descendant and their missions.

On the visual side, it’s been said before, and we’ll say it again: A lot of thought and care went into the design and details for this release. If you pay attention to textures alone, there’s an almost seamless blend between actual gameplay and cinematics, and quite frankly, it’s impressive to see this level of dedication.

We’ve gotten so used to the ‘wow’ factor being aimed at cinematics alone and the gameplay detail not sharing the same treatment that it’s somewhat become the new norm. While it might be a rare sight, we can certainly hope to see the same from other studios, even if it comes at the cost of a longer development time. It’ll be worth it in the end.

Now, where The First Descendant shines is when it comes to music and voice acting. There’s just so much to unpack here, but to keep it short, both have the same quality in creation as the visual side of life. While background music usually goes unnoticed, it’s still what drives a great ambiance and helps build a working atmosphere in any scene, and boy; did The First Descendant hit the nail on the head with this one.

However, having a brilliant voice acting for every interaction that didn’t become repetitive was just the icing on top. We’ve all had too many encounters with endlessly repetitive voice lines that literally drive you up the walls, but the experience in The First Descendant stays fresh the whole way purely because of this and the fact that you’ll only hear the same line again if you do die and have to start over.

Overall, The First Descendant was shaping up to be great during its beta stages, and it’s just getting better now with its full release. There have been some major improvements and one or two horrible additions to the mix, like the dreaded microtransactions and pay-to-win aspects, but there is still hope for this release. There’s a whole world to explore and a story to discover, and all it takes is a little willingness and some creativity, and it’ll be worth every second in the end.